


How to Make a Spirit Fox

by DevinePhoenix



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Accidental godhood, Alternate Universe - Animal Shifters, Fox Zuko, Gen, Kitsune, Kitsune Zuko, Kitsunegeddon, Kitsunegeddon 2020, Oblivious Zuko (Avatar), Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Theater Nerd Zuko (Avatar), Youkai, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinePhoenix/pseuds/DevinePhoenix
Summary: Everyone is born with animal features, a reflection of the spirit animal that represents their soul.Zuko is born as a fox in a royal family of cats.Also at some point he impersonates a spirit so well no one believes him when he says that he's not.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 793
Collections: A:tla, Kitsunegeddon 2020, One shots, escapism (to forget that the world is a burning hellscape)





	How to Make a Spirit Fox

**Author's Note:**

> The animal spirits people have are non-hybrid animals, which makes identification tricky since those are species which don’t exist in their world.
> 
> Edit: Did some rewording and adding because some stuff was bothering me

The royal family had been firebenders ever since the dawn of the Fire Nation. It was considered a sign of their divine right to rule by favour of their patron great spirit Agni. It was only right that the royal children were born with a spark in their breath and a fire in their soul. It was so unnatural; it could only be the work of spirits that the royal family had never produced a nonbending child.

(There was no telling if that was the truth or propaganda built on the bodies of their disposed non-bender children)

(The Fire Nation believed in equality to a brutal degree, men women, firebender or not, all would be used for the war effort. But if their right to rule was tied to having only nonbender children, Zuko could believe that there were bodies no one talked about)

(He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that Agni had blessed the Royal Family when they used their gifts for such awful atrocities on the people of the other Great Spirits. But what did he know about Great Spirits anyways?)

The Fire Nation Royal Family had always been firebenders but everyone also knew that they had been cat shifters just as long.

All people were born with a companion animal spirit in their soul. Spirit animals were strange imaginary creatures that didn’t exist in their world. They weren’t Turtleducks, they were a turtle or a duck.

The animal spirit showed on their human in physical features that they were born with. Babies were born with pink unfeathered wings on their backs or slit pupils or long tails or crinkled animal ears. As they grew older and gained more control of their animal spirit side, they’d learn how to shapeshift properly, how to hide their animal features or shift more of their body parts.

Long ago, when the spirits were more active in the world, it was common to be able to fully shift into the form of their spirit animal, but those times had long passed. Only a few talented and rare masters could manage near full and full shifts now.

The species and type of spirit animal a person was born with didn’t have any reason or pattern. Though bending type would follow family lines, animal shifters did not. A deer-shifter parent could end up with a bear-shifter child or a rabbit-shifter with a wolf-shifter. The choice of animal for a person was down to their spirit, not their physical form or genetics. It was a rare event when the animal species of a parent and child matched at all and unheard of for them to be identical. The violation of the that unspoken rule was what made the Fire Nation Royal Family so unusual.

Generation after generation they had borne nothing but cat-family shifters with occasional variations to other cat-like animals. They did have species variation between parent and child, but it was far less than other families.

Prince Zuko, fourth in line to the throne, was born in the darkest night of the winter solstice far from Agni’s grip. He was born under the most terrible omens for a firebender, especially an imperial one. If it was a normal family, they would’ve long assumed that the child would be a nonbender and moved on, but this was the Royal family.

(Zuko thinks about thrown away and murdered nonbender royal children a lot more than he should because he was aware that if not for a handful of coughed sparks, he’s would’ve shared their possible fate.

_Azula was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!_ )

Like most newborns, his ears and tail were too crumpled to make out what specific spirit animal he was, but they make a good estimate. The first estimate was usually changed to something more specific later when adult colours and markings came in, but he doesn’t have the tawny of most of the more predatory cats. He was quietly filed away as a common domestic black cat. It did not even cross the midwives’ mind to consider any non-cat species. What would be the point? He was born into the Fire Nation Royal Family and everyone knew they were always cats.

Later when his fur grows out from the newborn stage, as a muddy black-brown he is relabeled to common _longhaired_ cat for his extremely fluffy tail and the issue is left alone. The extra fluffiness combined with the colour ruled out all of the predatory cat spirits.

Ozai is furious of course. His firstborn has a weak flame and a weak shift animal. The pair of them cannot hope to match up to Crown Prince Iroh with his lion-shift or his son Lu Ten with his tiger-shift. He had to try for a new child. Hopefully a better one.

Zuko knew from since he was a kit that he didn’t quite belong.

His mother taught him how to shift like any good parent should, how to tug on that little _other_ in his soul to force the animal to the surface. It was very easy to pull that fur across his skin, if a little sweltering in the heat of the Caldera’s afternoon. It gets to his shoulders before his mother stops the practice. She looks frightened and asks him if he felt tired, if he hurts.

He feels fantastic, if a little antsy in the way a person got when stopped halfway through a task.

He must’ve done something wrong, because she’s very pale when she tells him to never take the shift past his elbows in front of anyone. Zuko doesn’t get it, but he obeys even if his skin itches sometimes, because his mother is the smartest so there must be a reason.

(Later in the dark of his room, he indulges in shifting as far as he can underneath his blankets. His other form is small and fragile, he kinda understands why he shouldn’t shift in front of others. Such a form could only show weak vulnerability which was not proper of a royal)

For all that shifting comes easy, there are many things he can’t quite do that he should be able to.

He can’t purr. It would be frowned upon as weak and childish by his father, so he’d be punished for it anyway, but he was never able to purr. Not for his sister or his cousin or his uncle or even his mother. It isn’t of much concern, since not all cats can purr but Zuko is supposed to be a common cat which should be able to.

The only noise he can make that his father approves of is his yowl, which is more of an unearthly screech than anything else. It is a good battle cry and it sounds fierce and far more frightening than the noises Azula or Uncle Iroh can make.

He can’t shift claws easily and the claws he does produce are nowhere near as sharp as Azula’s. Hers are odd too but only in ways that make than more deadly. He finally knows something is off when his claws can’t retract but he buries it down and doesn’t mention that creeping sense of wrong when he’s called a kitten. Azula’s can’t retract her claws either but her species is clear in the tawny fur in her tail and ears, everyone knows cheetah claws don’t retract.

He struggles with his firebending forms like none of the other cat royals have ever done. This isn’t to say, there were never problems teaching the royals before. For all that they were all cats, a lion would never learn or move the same way a cheetah would. His problems aren’t the norm there either, they are new.

His body just doesn’t want to move the same way. He doesn’t want to bat; he wants to pounce. He doesn’t want to unsheathe his claws; he wants to bare his teeth.

A good portion of Royal firebending forms uses the arms and indulges a cat’s instincts to swipe and paw. Zuko is far more comfortable with using his legs and the pouncing and leaping part of the katas.

Something is not quite right with him. If this was any other family, he probably would’ve been reassessed by a specialist to check his species, but this is not any family. He still looks as expected. Pointed black ears and a long fluffy black tail. Regular black longhaired cat.

He is not a cat.

He doesn’t admit it to himself, even in the depth of his mind, but he knows that he’s not a cat. The evidence is stacked against him.

It takes several long years before he can admit to himself that he was grateful for his banishment and mutilation at thirteen. It put him on the path to understanding and becoming a better person, but it also kept him away from his father while his adult coat in all its vibrant colours came in. At thirteen, his spirit animal had still been a kit, with a juvenile’s mottled dark fur coat, easily disguised as a cat. As an adult he didn’t have that luxury.

Zuko woke up a few weeks from his sixteenth birthday, heading into Southern Water Tribe waters with a patch of white fur on his tail. It’s still a small thing, barely bigger than a finger but so bright against the dark fur that it was like a glaring beacon of wrongness. His first thought is to hide it, to run to the boilers and grab a handful of coal and smear it across the white. The sharp spike of panic calms quickly though. His fur had always lightened in shade for winter, the muddy black turning a slightly grayer black. It had never changed so drastically but he might just be getting an adult winter coat.

(Coal dust wouldn’t last long in the seablast on the ship’s deck)

He doesn’t have time for uncertainty and fear, he has an Avatar to find. He straightens his spine, draws up all the courage a branded coward could have and heads up on deck for morning practice. The wide-eyed glances he gets are just another thing to ignore as he moves on with his day.

The cold breeze made him very glad that shaving one’s hair off to near bald is not traditionally required for those who have animal features on their head. Such a shaving was damaging to the ears, so he thankfully had avoided such a fate. His hair had been partially shaved anyway because of the burn. It had been nearly three years though, so his hair had long grown out again. A proper respectable topknot was forbidden to him due to his dishonour, so he kept his hair loose or pulled back in a phoenix tail. It served as a nice extra layer of insulation the closer they get to the ice shelf. He would be able to keep himself warm by firebending but it would burn calories he couldn’t afford to lose in the long term.

By the time they crashed into the southern water tribe’s village, Zuko’s fur had turned entirely white. Both his ears and his tail turned so blinding white that they nearly vanished against the snow of the South Pole. He had also been avoiding Uncle’s pointed concern for a week now with his own determined avoidance of his problems.

He was determined to pass this off as an overly enthusiastic winter coat that came in because his tropics-adapted body got a shock when faced with the harsh cold of the South Pole.

(Something about the look on Uncle’s face says that’s not it)

Even the Water Tribe peasants gives his animal features a funny look. When his helmet gets knocked off in the village, those looks morph into visible confusion. Zuko brushes it off like he brushed off the rest of his crew. They must have never seen a cat before in this tiny backwater place. (Zuko is the king of his own castle of denial and he refuses to be dethroned anytime soon) He still can’t help his tail from bristling under their gazes.

(The Water Tribe wondered how the hell an Artic Fox was born in the Fire Nation)

As he chased the Avatar all over the world and the seasons changed, his winter coat of pure white dropped out to leave the adult red-orange coat behind. At this point, denial could not work anymore. There was no hiding it or brushing it aside anymore. There was a marked difference between a possibly explained white coat and an absolutely unmistakable red tail with a white tip. He was not even a cat at all, nothing more than a common red fox.

At first, it feels like a betrayal. Is he even a prince? Is his father even his father? How could it be possible that a non-cat was born to the fire nation royal family? Uncle Iroh had to talk him down from the dark spiral of his thoughts.

It was then that he finally got to hear about his mother’s side of the family. He had only known that she was from a family of commoner herbalists but there was more to it than that. That unassuming family of herbalists were the last living descendants of Avatar Roku. Ozai had tried to add another powerful bloodline to his own but he had never thought that the royal family’s blood would lose. Ursa’s family was an entire family of foxes, with very strong blood.

Now that he thought about it, he had the same animal features as his mother. She had never liked to keep her feature out, so he only saw her ears and tail a few times. Her tail fur had been black though, and rough with what he only now realizes is heavy duty dye. Even though she was gone now, he is a fox just like her and the thought brings him some comfort that part of her lives on through him. (He does sometimes wonder what kind of fox she was)

Throughout the earth kingdom, he doesn’t quite hide his fox tail but the red of it is very distinctive and he distinctly does _not_ want to be noticed. Uncle is old enough and well trained enough to hide his distinct Leonine traits but Zuko is too young to hide away his features for any length of time. There’s no money for proper dye, but staining berries and even mud works in a pinch. No one expects cleanliness from an uncle and nephew on the run anyway.

The disguise becomes especially useful when he acts as the Blue Spirit. Initially his vigilante habits were driven by spite, raiding from Zhao when he refused their ship entry to his ports. Being banned from Fire Colony ports and wary of Earth Kingdom ports, there was very little ports where it was safe to acquire supplies. To alleviate pressure on their stores, Zuko had run a lot of stealth missions to swipe from Zhao’s own supplies. Later, when they are poor and wandering in the Earth Kingdom, it is to keep his uncle and himself fed. He can’t deny that some of it was just petty robbery.

While it was fun to sneak in and out without anyone knowing he was there, it got old fast. Not to mention the blame for the theft was thrown all around and might end up on some poor unfortunate soul. If he was going to steal from Zhao, he wanted him to know it was him.

(well not ‘Prince Zuko’ him because that would lead to unwanted consequences but ‘Blue Spirit’ him)

Zuko was a creature of drama, brought up on the theatrics and tales of old at his mother’s knee. He knew the myths and stories of Youkai and Spirits. He knew about the major named spirits, terrifying Koh the face-stealer, Tui and La the push and pull of the moon and ocean. He knew the stories of the unnamed spirits, the Painted Lady, the Blue Spirit.

He knew the stories of the Youkai Animal Spirits, powerful animal spirits not bound to human flesh. Just like the animal spirit that bonded to people at birth, the Youkai spirits were imaginary, non-hybrid animals and even stranger than regular animal spirits.

He knew the stories of the fox spirits, the knowledge seekers of the Wang-Shi-Tong Library, the nine-tailed celestial foxes, the _zenko_ messengers, the _nogitsune_ tricksters.

The Kitsune.

And he knew that the people of the earth kingdom knew those stories too. He made sure to apologize profusely to the spirits for impersonating one, but he used those stories and legends to his advantage. He was a fox after all, and all foxes loved a good bit of trickery.

(He never quite understood mind games and lying. Not like Azula. But he did understand theatre and that was what this is.)

The Blue Spirit was one of those vengeful trickster spirits where no one knew what kind of spirit animal they were. Popular views and most plays declared that a spirit so tricky must be a kitsune. Zuko was certain that as a spirit, the Blue Spirit may be no animal at all. People think ‘fox’ when they see the blue mask, so it was easy to use their assumption to help his disguise.

Zuko was no kitsune, he was just a common fox, and he had no kitsune fox-illusions, but he was a firebender and theatrics and tricks will fool them.

He can’t say that his new role isn’t fun.

He never speaks and his foxtail flickers in and out of shift to cause a haunting effect like a Kitsune with a spirit’s tail. He is not Azula, so the blue flame of proper _Kistune-bi_ (the ghostly blue foxfire balls that Kitsune used to lure travelers) are impossible but after some trial and error he could summon flickers of haunting flame, a yellow flame so weak it gave him the effect he desired.

It was improper firebending, of course. It used none of the proper katas or ferociousness firebending should have. It was merely an extrapolation of one of the parlour tricks that Uncle taught him, like the warming breath of fire. Not real firebending.

But the faint whispers of yellow gave him the perfect spirit aesthetic and didn’t out him as a firebender outright.

(When he had to make a _statement,_ he fashioned himself tails of pale fire to add to his own foxtail and prayed that he was not committing blasphemy)

He was not aware of it until years later, but he left legends in his wake. His little trips and performances that are more scare tactics than anything else, don’t end up limited to the areas he acted in. Those tales grow a life of their own and soon rumors spread far and wide through the colonies and the earth kingdom about the Blue Spirit.

Something about a being that can slip into the most fortified areas in the four nations to strike fear into the hearts of the unjust and oppressive soldiers makes for a powerful rebellion story. Zuko made sure to not favour one nation over the other, though Zhao was always an exception. As he traveled, he saw people hurting on both sides of the war. There were belligerent Fire Nation soldiers but also greedy Earth Kingdom soldiers pillaging their own towns. There were Fire Nation soldiers in the colonies who were respectful and helpful to their towns, there were Earth Kingdom soldiers trying their best to till earth for villages to help out how they could.

Zuko too tried to help out how he could. There were fat Earth Kingdom nobles riding around in carriages with their own weight in gold while the peasants starved outside. He robbed them blind and spread the wealth as much as he can. He took all the supplies a patrol of Fire Nation soldiers had stolen and returned them back to the villages.

He menaced the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike to get two separate wanted posters from each country. He took back what had been stolen from the people of the land. He made no distinction between if those people of the land were of earth or fire. They all have had some damage done to them. Their crops, their animals, their houses, their families.

People speak of a spirit made flesh, a Kitsune, descended to walk the earth to try and right the balance.

(Even quieter, they whisper that it was just a kit. Small and scrawny with a righteous rage not yet worn down by the world)

Ba Sing Se doesn’t stop him from his crusade but it does greatly lessen it. There were still thousands of refugees crammed into the lower rings of the city in need of help. He helped the best he could without outright provoking the Dai Li and making them aware of his presence.

He gave up robbing completely. Ba Sing Se had serious law enforcement in the city and there wasn’t anyone in the lower rings rich enough to steal from without guilt. Even the richest of the district were merely getting by. He still patrolled but it wasn’t as necessary. He favoured stealth over his usual showmanship tricks and even stopped using his mask for fear of getting identified. Even if he tried with his tricks and intimidating tactics, scaring the entire military force of Ba Sing Se would be impossible and it would only draw attention to them. Ba Sing Se already killed one royal and he was not about to give them a second and third.

He didn’t spend much time as the Blue Spirit in Ba Sing Se. He was too caught up with being Li the tea server and helping uncle during the day. Unfortunately, since they were back into polite society, he could no longer disguise his fox’s tail. Mud and stains were bad for business in a tea shop. Dye was an option again but after the starvation and struggle on the journey to Ba Sing Se, he can’t bear to waste funds for his own comfort. He has no choice but to clean his tail and let the natural russets shine through.

Just as he feared, the vibrant red with white tip drew far more attention than he would like. Far more than his scar did. Customers kept waylaying him to small talk and seemed far more interested in him now that his tail was clean. The focus was very unnerving, but they didn’t seem to mean ill. Their curiosity meant they came back, (Though Zuko was positive they were returning for Uncle’s excellent brews) and more business was always better since it helped their finances. In the time honoured tradition of customer service staff, he learnt to bite his tongue and at least be grudgingly polite through the small talk. It didn’t work very well since he apparently had zero skill in small talk.

Iroh just shook his head in the background as the shop filled up with hopeful suitors hoping to get some attention from the pretty server. Sometimes he really wondered about his nephew’s obliviousness, he certainly didn’t get it from him! When he was 16, he was flirting with everything that moved. Zuko didn’t even notice when that nice girl was trying to ask him on a date!

The scar hadn’t grown any smaller or less prominent on his face as he aged but it couldn’t disguise the fact that Zuko had a very attractive face. Combined with a vibrant fluffy tail (Well cared for and vibrant animal features were a good thing to look for in a mate), Long fluffy dark hair and his light movements that looked like a dancer’s (but really was that of a swordsman), Zuko was considered the district’s heartthrob.

The people of Ba Sing Se knew that the best place to get quality tea, was the Jasmine Dragon.

The proprietor, an older man with a jolly laugh, could make the most amazing blends that outstripped anything you would taste in any other tea shop. He was a very charismatic man who easily drew in customers with his charm. He never showed a single sign of what his animal shift was but that wasn’t unusual, some adults and clans thought it rude to openly display their traits, so no one bothered to ask.

The main server of the shop was the man’s nephew. He had none of his uncle’s egregious charm, but they could see why. One only had to see that large, almost hand shaped, scar across the boy’s face to know that he had suffered some serious trauma. He was polite to the customers, but he did yell a lot, enough that most of the regulars were certain that the burn had damaged his hearing.

He also had the most luxurious, gorgeous fox tail that anyone had ever seen.

It wasn’t like there weren’t other foxes in Ba Sing Se. It was a big city and they weren’t particularly rare. It was just that they didn’t seem to be whatever breed of fox that this kid was. They had brown foxes, grey foxes, black foxes, foxes with tan coloured tails and ridiculously long ears. They had red foxes too, ones with pretty blonde-orange fur and a white tail tip. But this kid had a red that was far closer to red than orange. No one could quite agree what fox breed he was, and it wouldn’t be polite to ask him directly.

The kid had his own share of admirers, teenagers who would show up to the shop for the sole purpose of talking to the pretty fox. They tried small talk, they tried flirting, they tried outright asking him out, but it all flew right over his head. All the adults thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

When Ba Sing Se was invaded, the boy and his uncle vanished. The optimistic liked to think that they managed to escape Ba Sing Se before the Fire Nation took complete control. The pessimistic assumed they were killed in the takeover and mourned.

* * *

When Zuko stood before the Avatar in the depths of the Western Air Temple, he knew far more than he did when he was a kid playing at being a spirit. He knew about the world and the people and the impact of the war. He knew about the propaganda and lies that were fed to the Fire Nation people to keep the war going. He knew about himself.

His great-grandfather was Avatar Roku, the last Fire Nation Avatar and a Fox just like him. There were no surviving colour paintings of the Avatar, so he would never have proof that they shared the same shade of red fur but he was nearly sure they did.

The writings he found in the depths of the Caldera mentioned that Roku was an Avatar with _nine-fold_ power. If he jumped to conclusions after reading all the subtext, that would mean that Roku was a proper _nine-tailed fox!_ The writings could just be a saying or exaggeration by the author but Zuko really doesn’t think so. There was a precedent for Avatar’s animal spirits to be just that more _other._ A bit more like spirits than spirit animals. A badgermole instead of a badger, a basilisk instead of a snake, a phoenix instead of a bird.

Either way, he now knew why Ozai wanted to marry his mother and why he feels so different. Sometimes, the kin of the current form of the avatar’s spirit takes a liking to their family. The Kitsune spirit clan liked Roku’s children a lot, because his father’s records hinted that every single one of his descendants were foxes when they were alive. There was a little spirit in his blood, a touch of _otherworldy-trickster-kitsune_ to what should just be a _mortal-human-with-animal-spirit_ like everyone else.

If a person was born with a hole in their soul for an animal spirit to bond to them, their holes were made of shapeless morphing water to accept and adapt to whatever animal puzzle piece decided to bond. Zuko was born with a soul already hardened so that the only animal piece that could fit was fox shaped. His potential Fire Nation royalty cat spirit had nowhere it could fit into his soul. The Royal family had a similar rigidness in their soul to only allow for cat type spirits but even then it couldn’t compete with the Fox spirits that had long laid claim to Roku’s lineage.

In fact, looking at the records, it was more a miracle that Azula had ­ _not_ been born a fox with how strong the gene was.

Zuko is full of knowledge and well humbled and _will_ right his wrongs no matter what he has to do. It his duty to fix what his royal family has wrought, but he also has a duty to his mother’s family and distant spirit kin. This war is hurting them too as it damages the world. He must teach the Avatar; he can do nothing else.

They don’t accept him right away. Who would? To them he is a persistent enemy who hunted them across the world. The Water Tribe boy tried to be intimidating but to be honest, he was the least intimidating person in the group, and it had nothing to do with his non-bender status. Something about his personality lent to pettiness and sniping and dislike but not the bone deep insidious hatred that would kill him on sight. Aang would take that position with his babyface if it wasn’t for the fact that he was, _you know, the Avatar_.

The short earthbender girl had no grudge with him so she wasn’t too scary either, she even spoke up in his favour. And despite how terrifying her feral grin and skill at earthbending was, Zuko still felt distant kinship with her. Those round ears on her head may have looked like a badger but he could tell deep in his fox-soul that she too was a little off from the normal. If her animal spirit wasn’t a Badgermole, he’d eat his swords.

By far, the most terrifying person in the bunch was the waterbender girl with wide white wings spread in what can only be a threat display. It worked. Zuko definitely felt threatened. He had seen what she could do, and she had that deep hatred that could turn his life painful if she caught him alone without Aang to hold her back. He could tell, from her wings and feathers she had to be some type of owl. Probably some Artic kind due to the colouring but he wasn’t sure.

Of course, because his life is never easy, when he finally tried to teach, his flame had burnt down to embers. He could no longer use ferocious flames of combat in the proper waves of scarlet rage. It no longer flared dangerously as a proper firebender’s should. Thankfully, his fire had not gone completely out, he could still call those soft floating flames of _kitsune-bi_ and his kitsune tails. But those are only _tricks_ , they aren’t the firebending that that the Avatar needs to save the world.

In the end they can only go back to the origins of firebending. They went to find the Sun Warriors and find the last living dragons instead.

Ran and Shaw were enormous and beautiful and everything a five-year-old Zuko had dreamed of. For all that his grandfather decreed the murder of all dragons, they did not hold him responsible. They treated him the same as Aang. Perhaps due to equality or perhaps due to the faint otherness of a fellow spirit in his soul. He would never know. They did not speak, and they did not attempt the spiritual mind-touch with their whiskers that legends say dragons were capable of. Instead, they showed them the way of fire, of _life_ , through rainbow fire and dance.

When they returned from the visit, his firebending was back stronger than ever and even his _kitsune-bi_ gained new colour and power. Not the stark blue of Azula, but the whispering of the rainbow that the dragons showed them. Even his trick of making kitsune tails, a habit that barely required any effort from him anymore, had improved. Before he could only manage four distinct fox tails that curled and reached and swayed almost like Katara’s waterbending octopus form. Now, he could handle up to five with far more ease than he used to.

He tried to teach Aang how to do it, but there was no luck there. It wasn’t quite a firebending form with a kata that could be taught. It was more like trying to mimic and amplify the fox tail he already had. He had never used any body movements for it either, no motion with his hands or feet. Much like with his _kitsune-bi_ it was solely from flexing his chi.

Aang didn’t have a tail, or at least not the same kind of tail. His spirit animal was a creature of the sky, some kind of bird with white and black patterned wings. He didn’t know much about spirit birds (which are not the same thing as the birds in the real world like parrotlizards or turtleducks) so he couldn’t identify it if he wanted to. It wouldn’t matter any way since Aang’s spirit animal was probably something…more.

The Avatar was a prodigy, which is to be expected. If he could not get a handle on Zuko’s tail trick, then it might only be able to be used by people who had spirit animals with tails.

What Zuko doesn’t know is this.

He leaves a trail of legends behind him. He leaves a mark on the earth kingdom of a kitsune spirit walking the earth.

What he does not know is this.

He has left rumor and whispers and a legend in the fire nation as _himself_. Tales of a bright-eyed young boy in the palace feeding turtleducks with a fluffy bottlebrush tail. A tale of a thirteen-year-old boy who stood up and said no when their own leader threw the lives of their children away. (they try to cover that up with propaganda about _glory_ and _lost in battle, so sad_ but walls have ears)

The Royalty command the country but they too are at the scrutiny of their subjects. The servants are quiet and respectful, but they _listen_ and they carry what they hear. The rumours gain life and teeth, whispered in bars and markets until it seems everyone has heard of the Prince’s honour.

His people still have _faith_ in him. And Faith makes all the difference to a youkai spirit.

He fights his own sister for the throne, all his blaze and tails against her biting blue. It is not easy, he had never been a good firebender when compared to her genius. She is lightning quick, with her cheetah’s ears pined back and her tail lashing. They would be hissing and snarling but they need their breath for fire.

He does come out of it with a brand-new scar but they win.

History says this.

Firelord Zuko is crowned at the age of sixteen as one of the youngest Firelords and ends the hundred-year war. He rebuilds nations and culture and promotes peace all his life. He strangles out corruption and lays solid foundations that would keep the country from becoming mislead so easily in the future. He had a burn scar across one eye that his father gave him and was notable for keeping the ‘blemish’ on his official portrait. Firelord Zuko was not a cat like the Firelords before him. Instead he was a fox, with black pointed ears and a scarlet furred tail with a white tip. Even when he was grown, he never tucked his ears and tail away for any length of time his whole life.

(If his mother cannot see him grow, he will carry a part of her with him forever for all to see)

History books don’t often bother with legends and myths and rumour, (unless it’s state-approved propaganda of course) but just this once they do.

Firelord Zuko, the history books say, was a kitsune spirit born into the royal family. By the end of his long life, he had eight tails of flame to join his flesh-and-blood one. Perfectly controlled tails that bloomed to life like a lotus flower when he sat upon his throne. He was the epitome of a spirit-tale made real, a real live nine-tailed kitsune just like the legendary avatar Roku from who he descended.

Zuko tries to say that he’s not actually a kitsune but he played his part a little too well and by the time he comes clean, no one believes him. Even Aang gets a placating look on his face when he brings it up, which Zuko thinks is plain odd. Shouldn’t the Avatar be able to tell that he wasn’t a spirit?

**Author's Note:**

> Zuko actually isn’t any kind of fox at all, since red foxes would never turn completely white like an artic fox for winter and artic foxes would never turn red in summer, they turn a kind of muddy brown. So Lol Zuko managed to fool everyone by telling the truth, he actually IS a kitsune. His mother’s family, Avatar Roku are all Kitsune. Not strong ones but they all have a touch of other. Decendants of the Avatar always have a little bit of other in them depending on what animal spirit the avatar had for that cycle (Not the same as their animal companion).


End file.
